


The Kids Are All Right

by bookishandbossy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode 3, Skye pov, Some angst, and some fitz pov, but also some fluff, my ot4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2397710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simmons has been back for one week, three days, and eight hours and it's like she's still gone.  Or, Skye tries to bring Fitzsimmons back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kids Are All Right

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place after episode 3 and assumes that Simmons was working undercover for SHIELD during the time she was away.

Simmons has been back for one week, three days, and eight hours and it's like she's still gone. Skye sees it, watching them at work in the lab from behind the glass after May asks her to go check up on them. Months ago, any lab with Fitz and Simmons in it would have been humming with noise, as they talked over and around and with each other, throwing out pieces of sentences and knowing that the other one would finish it. Now the only sounds Skye can hear is the clink of glass and the occasional thud when Fitz drops something. Simmons went to help him pick it up once and he just looked at her until she went away again. Months ago, they were in violation of each other's personal space at least half the time. Now, they stand on the opposite side of the lab from each other, politely passing equipment and the occasional question back and forth like they're more nothing more than casual acquaintances. It makes Skye's heart hurt.

“I don't know what I'm supposed to do.” she says to Trip, catching the beer that he tosses to her. “I don't know how to fix it.”

“Maybe you're not supposed to do anything. Maybe we just all need to give them time.” Trip turns to examine her, hands in his jean pockets. “Are you doing okay?”

“Maybe. I don't know.” she shrugs.

“Can I hug you then? Are big bad SHIELD agents allowed to do that?” he smiles brightly enough to outshine the sun and she lets him. She fits against him perfectly and resting her head on his shoulder, Skye thinks that she could stay there for a long, long time. After she lets him go, Trip drops a kiss on her cheek, so fast that she barely feels it, and asks her if she wants to order a pizza. She thinks that he might be blushing.

“I don't think they deliver to top-secret bases.” she teases. “Besides, what happened to no junk in the temple?” 

“You need pizza and for you, I might be able to make an exception.” he gives her another smile and she finds herself giggling like she's still in high school and it hits her then: this is what Fitz and Simmons need. Something to make them smile, to make them remember the times when they smiled with each other, to remember what a smile even looks like.

She tells May this the next morning during training, as they spar and she dodges one of May's punches. “Well done.” May says calmly, not even out of breath. “Let me know when you've decided how.”

“I don't know how.” Skye admits and sucks in a long breath. She might have known once, but she's not quite sure who the new versions of Fitz and Simmons are—the boy whose hands shake when they used to be sure, the girl with hard edges that used to be soft—but they are still her friends and seeing them smile suddenly seems like it would be the most wonderful thing she can think of.

“Go talk to them.” May replies and so the next day, Skye is perched awkwardly on a lab bench watching Fitz frown down at a tiny gadget. She tries asking him about what it does, about what he and Simmons are working on, and he mutters one-word replies back at her. Then she rambles on about the latest mission she and Trip went on, and the odd alien code that's still etched into the wall, and what does he think it could be. Fitz tilts his head up to listen to her briefly and then slides his eyes back down to his workbench. Skye sighs in frustration but she's not giving up. She tries the weather, the new run of Doctor Who, Agent Coulson's complaints about flying coach, the bunch of monkeys that one of the bad guys they're chasing has lying around.

“Did they start yelling when you came in there?” Fitz asks slowly. “Monkeys have their own systems of communication, you know—he might be keeping them around as a warning system. They've got this particular howl...” Sometimes he forgets the words he wants and sometimes his hands start shaking again, but Skye waits for him to catch up, and so they spend about ten minutes talking about monkeys. Once, when she makes a bad monkey joke, she thinks that she even sees the corner of his mouth curve up and she barely resists the urge to pump her fist in the air in triumph, especially when Simmons starts glancing over.

“We all need to go to the zoo.” Skye announces to Trip later. “Fitz will look at monkeys and Simmons will get really excited about lizards and then we can lock them in a supply closet till they talk to each other.”

“How do four people who don't exist get into a zoo? And what are we supposed to do while they're in a supply closet?” Trip has his I-am-the-responsible-one look on, but she knows from the way that he leans back against the table that he's ready to let her talk him into it.

“Glasses, baseball caps, and displays of public affection, just like the best.” She once got Agent Hill to tell her the story of how Agents Romanoff and Rogers evaded HYDRA in a shopping mall, after three rounds of drinks and her best puppy dog eyes. “And I am going to introduce you to the wonder that is frozen lemonade and giant pretzels with mustard.”

“Can't say no to that.” They clink beers and it's decided. Skye talks to May, who talks to Coulson and then Agent Koenig is making them reservations and May is making sure that they have properly nondescript hoodies and she realizes that she's forgotten to tell Fitz and Simmons about all of this. So one day she marches into the lab and asks them if they want to go to the zoo.

“The zoo?” Simmons looks up from her work.

“It's a team bonding exercise. Coulson approved.”

“But not mandatory.” Simmons points out, fingers tapping against her worktable with anxiousness. “I've got some work to finish in the lab and I really think that it'd be best if we--”

“Which zoo?” Fitz asks quickly.

“San Diego. It's a beautiful day out. Sun glinting off the waves, flowers blooming, the smell of fried food in the air, monkeys happily chattering, lizards making lizard-y noises...” Skye knows that she's laying it on a little too thick but someone has to. Fitz throws a glance at Simmons, like he can still know what she's thinking without having to ask, and for a moment Simmons looks back. He slowly mouths the word “monkeys” at Simmons, shyly at first as he offers it up to her. Then her face lights up, eyes going wide with surprise and mouth curling into an-almost smile before she remembers herself and turns her face back into the usual “oh, Fitz” expression. “So, are you coming?” Skye asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

“I think we are,” Simmons says and there it is. The “we” that Skye hasn't heard for what feels like forever. “So what's the cover story?” It ends up being remarkably easy: Fitz gets black rectangular glasses and a t-shirt emblazoned with the Avengers logo, Simmons gets a flowy sundress and big movie-star sunglasses, and Skye gets her hand linked in Trip's.

“You've got the story?” she asks him.

“We've been dating for four months, Simmons was your college roommate who's come down to visit you and catch up, Fitz is the friend from her grad program at Berkeley that's she dragged around, and—I'm going to end up buying you a giant stuffed panda because of this. Is that the real reason you're dragging us all to the zoo?” Trip fake-sighs. “I expected better from you, Agent Skye. A giant stuffed snake to scare Koenig with, at the very least.”

“I can do better than a stuffed snake, Agent Triplett. Never underestimate a girl who's been trained by Agent May in pranking.” She swings the door of the SUV open and emerges into the bright California sun. Trip is right beside her, slipping an arm around her waist, and Fitz and Simmons are leaning against the SUV and blinking in the light. Once they're inside, she says casually that she and Trip are going to check out the otters and asks if they want to meet up in a hour. She waits until Fitz and Simmons are out of sight, still keeping a careful distance from each other, before she turns to Trip and asks him if he thinks they should follow Fitz and Simmons.

“They're going to be okay, Skye,” he says firmly. “They know the cover story, they've got a map, they're a pair of geniuses.”

“A pair of geniuses who've barely talked to each other since Simmons got back,” she snaps.

“And that's why you decided we needed to go to the zoo, so they could talk, even if it's just about monkeys, and so they could smile, even if it's just for a minute. Give them space to get used to each other again. If you still want to check on them later, we can do that. But they're going to be okay, Skye,” he repeats and turns her to face him in the circle of his arms, drawing her closer without even realizing he's doing it. “And if they're not, we'll help them get there. So for now...” he pauses dramatically, “Are you ready to go on the best pretend date of your life?”

“Who says it's pretending?” Skye says and she goes up on the tips of her toes and kisses him, hard. For a moment he sways backwards, surprised, but then he's scooping her up, one arm still around her waist and the other coming up to cup her face, and he kisses her slowly, carefully, like they've got all the time in the world to stand there kissing in front of an informational sign at the San Diego Zoo, like he's going to kiss her a thousand more times. And Skye thinks that she just might let him.

“Told you,” Leopold Fitz says and puts down his binoculars. He glances over at Jem—Simmons, she's Simmons now, fearless double agent Simmons who infiltrated HYDRA without asking anyone for permission and who walked away without a backwards glance—and he still finds himself hoping that she'll look back. Instead she's bent over the map of the zoo, clutching it so tightly that her fingers are white around the edges.

“I thought the binoculars were meant for getting a better view on the Skyfari, not for spying on Skye and Trip.” she says when she finally looks up. “What do you want to go see first? There's a quite interesting exhibit about animals that use camouflage.”

“And you would know all about camouflage, wouldn't you?” Fitz mutters.

“I don't know what you want me to say, Fitz.” Her voice is a wire stretched tight. “The best way to get at HYDRA is from the inside, and I was the only one who had a believable reason for switching sides. I didn't want to leave the team—I didn't want to leave you—at first but then you weren't getting any better and I had to do _something_. You have to know what that feels like, this desperate itch that gets under your skin and you feel like you'll die if you don't move and--”

“I understand why you left--” he interrupts. “Logically, rationally, I can understand why you left. But I look at you and I don't know whether or not you're real.”

“You saw me while I was gone?” Simmons asks.

“It wasn't you. Not really. I knew that but I—I--” His tongue ties itself in knots again and he knows the word but he can't find it and his hands are shaking and all he can think is not again.

“I know, Fitz. I still know you.” she says quietly.

“Do you really? I think sometimes that I don't know you at all.” Sometimes he looks at this strange new woman, with her short hair and her scars, and his mind tells him that this is Jemma Simmons but his heart keeps on saying that this isn't his Jemma, and he thinks that the real Jemma, the one that he loves, is hidden away somewhere, waiting to come back. But then she'll say or do something that is so unquestionably Jemma and his mind and his heart don't know what to say. 

“We've all changed. But that doesn't mean we can't be us anymore—we'll just be a new version. Fitzsimmons 2.0,” she says and stands there, willing to wait for him. A million things fly through his head in that minute: endless weeks spent trying to impress her at the Academy, the way she looked inspecting something puzzling in their lab on the Bus, her turning back to look at him as she fell, her firm conviction that she is Sherlock and he is Watson, everything that once convinced him that Jemma Simmons was the kind of person worth dying for. And, looking at the woman who refuses to give up on him, who sacrifices piece after piece of herself for the ones she loves (he's heard the stories about what happened while she was undercover), he thinks that she might still be.

“Right, then,” he takes a deep breath. “My name is Leo Fitz, I'm an engineer, my favorite doctor is Nine, and I like the color blue, any kind of snack food, and monkeys. And I'd like it quite a lot if you'd be interested in spending the rest of today with me.”

“My name is Jemma Simmons, I'm a biochemist, my favorite doctor is Four, and I like cardigans in any color, pesto, and poison arrow frogs. And I'd like it quite a lot if I did spend the rest of today with you.” She holds out her hand, he takes it, and for the first time since the pod, when he sees her, he sees Jemma.

Later, when they all meet for lunch, Skye and Trip are beaming at each other and can't name a single animal that they saw and Fitzsimmons are still holding hands under the table, and no one says anything about it. Instead they make bets on how many helpings of fries Fitz can eat, plot out their next destinations on the map, and pull their chairs close together no matter how many people glare at them. It's not a happy ending, all the loose ends tied up into a bow. It's not even the middle on the way to a happy ending. But it's the beginning of one and for now, it's all they need.


End file.
